NEWSENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Iraq war veteran Mark Grapin's fight to keep a simple treehouse he built for his two sons in Fairfax County, Virginia has made national news, catching the attention of people across the country disturbed by local officials' orders that he remove the structure due to an obscure zoning technicality.

It certainly caught the attention of fellow Army officer Cameron Dunbar-Yamaguchi,  who saw the news from his hometown in Portland, Oregon.

Cameron came to Change.org to start a petition to the Fairfax County Zoning Board. When I asked him what motivated him to take this action, he said he was especially moved because the treehouse was a promise Grapin made before deploying to Iraq:

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By Candice Norcross, a resident of Grand Rapids, MI and creator of a Change.org petition to protect the Thornapple River

Forty-one volunteers arrived at Lincoln Park in Ada, Michigan for the annual River Clean-Up Day. The early risers pulled blue shirts over their hoodies and gathered at the covered bridge, ready to scour the banks for garbage. Joggers — with knowing smiles — watched as we carried the canoes to the water's edge and started on our way.

I had never been to this particular river before, as it's about 10 miles from my own corner of Grand Rapids. However, I recently read several news articles in regards to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport and its stormwater dilemma. I was inspired to launch a petition on Change.org to protect the river from the airport's new proposal to use the river as a dump site for de-icing fluid.

Last week, activists working on the campaign to permanently clean up New Jersey's Ringwood State Park got major news. At a packed community hearing, state officials backed away from plans to transfer the ownership of contaminated areas of the park back to Ford Motor Company, responding to the campaign on Change.org to keep the park in public hands.

Ford's efforts to gain control of areas where the car company dumped toxic waste are now indefinitely off the table—making room for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a legally binding plan for contamination in the park.

by David Wheeler, author of Wild New Jersey: Nature Adventures in the Garden State.

When a state park is established, most of us rightfully assume that preservation will last forever. But in Ringwood, New Jersey, a suburban community nestled into the rugged mountains just 40 minutes northwest of New York City, Ford Motor Company is attempting to take over part of Ringwood State Park.

The community of Upper Ringwood, made up mostly of Ramapough Mountain Indians, has been living off the land for generations—catching fish, hunting game, and growing vegetables. But Ford’s irresponsible dumping in the 1960s and early 1970s has forever changed this community. Ford's toxic dumping tells a story of disease, premature death, and a way of life forever altered by pollution.

Below is a guest blog post by New Orleans jazz artist Katja Toivola-Jones, who started a petition to re-open Louis Armstrong Park.

Jazz culture is the heart and soul of New Orleans, and Louis Armstrong, more than anyone, is the famous son who's made it so. The proud jazz spirit Armstrong's legend nurtured here helped keep the city afloat during our difficult rebuilding years since Hurricane Katrina.

So why is the city park named in Louis Armstrong's honor a year after his death still not fully re-opened—almost 6 years since the levees failed?

There are answers, but because they are more like excuses, they are not so satisfying.

For years, the Lehigh cement quarry and plant in Cupertino, California got away with violating state environmental safety and pollution laws.

Not any more.

A group of citizens—with the help of 26,000 people who signed the petition started on Change.org— have proven they can make a difference, even in the face of powerful interests.

Recently, as reported by Louis Sahagun in today's Los Angeles Times, California state officials issued an "ultimatum" to Lehigh, the oldest cement manufacturer in California. Either shape up in 30 days, or lose government cement contracts, which comprise up 70 percent of the company's revenue.

In the wake of Exxon Mobil's recent oil spill in Montana, it's now crystal clear (if it wasn't already) what a mistake the U.S. State Department would be making in approving the Keystone XL pipeline—a conduit that would carry Alberta's corrosive, carbon-heavy tar sands oil under the Yellowstone River and through America's heartland, in what remains today a poorly-regulated pipeline system.

Tens of thousands of Change.org members who took action to stop Keystone, through both the Sierra Club's and No Tar Sands Oil Coalition's actions, agree.

So do several Senators who sent a letter to the State Department on Friday. The letter, signed by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D- OR), Robert Menenedez (D-NJ), Frank Lautenberg (D NJ), and Ben Cardin (D-MD), called on the State Department to conduct additional environmental reviews. The EPA has already called the review thus far "insufficient," according to the Hill.  For example, the letter states that there was no consideration of an alternative route for the pipeline, one that would avoid a vast underground aquifer that supplies water to much of the Midwest.

The last year has been mostly hardship for Russia's Khimki Forest defenders—replete with beatings, bloody noses, bulldozers and bullying foreign corporations. Change.org members are well aware of their plight, with more than 23,000 of you supporting their campaign to end the construction corporation Vinci's involvement in the forest's destruction.

In a country where protest is too frequently repressed, the last four days have been a big party— a time for peace and celebration in Khimki Forest for 2,000 anti-corruption supporters who have come to show their voice. The Washington Post called it Russia's "Woodstock" moment.

Now, the celebration is over. And the beat goes on.

Margaret Swink is the Communications Director of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. Ploughshares Fund provides support to the Kansas City Physicians for Social Responsibility, a member group of the Kansas City Peace Planters.

Over 150 people have already died and more are sick from working at the nation’s leading manufacturer of nuclear weapons parts in Kansas City, MO. But instead of cleaning up the plant, run by Honeywell for the National Nuclear Security Administration, Kansas City is planning to rebuild and expand the facility. It will create new jobs, they claim, in an economy that badly needs them.

Many in Kansas City, however, believe that jobs building nuclear bombs aren’t the jobs they need to rebuild the local economy. Instead, they’ve created a proposal to convert the bomb factory into a wind energy plant, building on the area’s natural wind resources to create green-collar jobs that will last long into the future.

The plans for the new plant are being financed by a city municipal bond, and incentivized by millions of dollars in city tax incentives to Honeywell. The financial burden this imposes on the city should mean that the community has the right to choose what they want the plant to be used for, argues the Kansas City Peace Planters, the leading group opposing the plant. They’ve gathered almost 5,000 signatures asking the City Council to put the issue on November’s ballot, allowing the community to choose between building a bomb facility and building alternative energy components, including high-voltage power lines, turbines and windmills.

Last month, the non-profit American Rivers announced its annual list of the country’s ten most endangered rivers, complete with ten Change.org petitions working to save each one. Less than three weeks later, that campaign is already making a difference.

American Rivers and other activists declared victory this week for the Chicago River, which had been number four on the list. The problem here was that Cook County was dumping 1.2 billion gallons of wastewater into the river every day. While reclaimed water is a good thing, refusing to sanitize it is not, and Chicago was the only city in the country to dump its wastewater without disinfecting it first.

But local officials were listening, and thanks in part to American Rivers, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago voted earlier this week to begin disinfecting the wastewater.

This is a huge step forward – but it’s not enough. From Alaska to Virginia, nine other rivers across still need our help. That’s nine sources of drinking water, recreation, and wildlife habitat.